Читать книгу The Historical Collection - Stephanie Laurens - Страница 28

“What’s the meaning of this? You’re hosting a ball?” Penny waited on Gabriel’s explanation.

He offered none.

Instead, he strolled across the room to her, took the paper from her hand, and read through the notice of his impending ball.

“I see little to discuss. The Prattler has captured the details. In fact, it’s shockingly accurate, considering the publication.” He returned the paper.

“Yes, but—”

“While you’re here …” He left the room, glancing back in a manner that invited her to follow. “I want your opinion on some wall coverings.”

He mounted the stairs, and Penny followed. She hated trailing after him like a pup, but she wasn’t going to let him get away. “According to the paper, you’ve sent invitations already. Perhaps mine was lost in the post?”

“Hammond likes the periwinkle blue,” he went on. “But I don’t trust his opinion on current fashions. Not for a lady’s suite.”

Penny growled behind clenched teeth. Wasn’t he paying attention to her at all? Apparently not, or else she would have warned him that this ball scheme was a terrible idea.

He led her into a mostly empty bedchamber. The few pieces of furniture had been pushed to the center of the room and draped with Holland cloths, and the walls were stretches of blank plaster. Three strips of silk damask had been tacked to one wall, each a different shade of blue.

“You’ve seen my house. I don’t know anything about current fashions in wall coverings. Mr. Hammond’s opinion is surely—”

He shut the door and pushed her up against it, crushing his mouth to hers in a possessive kiss. As his tongue found hers, a needy sigh rose in the back of her throat. The newspaper slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. She couldn’t recall why she’d been holding it in the first place. It didn’t matter.

All she wanted to hold was Gabriel.

She took his face in her hands, sanding her palms on the delicious scruff of his whiskers before twining her fingers into his hair and holding tight. His hands roamed her body, claiming handfuls of her hips and skimming over her breasts.

“I need you,” he murmured between kisses. “It’s been ages.”

“It’s been”—she thought on it—“seventeen hours.”

“Like I said. Ages.” He bent to kiss her neck.

“We can’t,” she gasped. “Not here. There’s no bed.”

He grinned wickedly. “Love, we don’t need a bed.”

“Oh.”

One of his hands caught the hem of her frock and hiked it above her knee, bunching her petticoats between their bodies. He swept his palm up her thigh, and pleasure rippled in the wake of his touch. While he nuzzled at her neck and licked at her breasts where they overflowed her bodice, his touch explored her intimate places. Her breathing quickened. Her nipples pulled to hard, aching peaks.

He slid a finger inside her. She melted against the door, her knees gone soft. She clutched his shoulders, clinging to him for strength as he stoked her desire with expert caresses.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done to me,” he whispered. “I don’t understand what you’ve done to me.”

“Whatever it is, you’ve done the same to me.” She gasped as he pushed a second finger inside her, and she caught him in a breathless, grappling kiss. They tugged at each other’s clothing.

“I wanted you from the first,” he said.

“I wanted you, too.”

“Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you in my bed.”

“I couldn’t stop picturing you naked and wet.”

“If you knew the things you’ve done in my imagination …”

“I touched myself while thinking of you.”

He groaned against her lips. “Jesus Christ, that’s one of them.”

She whimpered in protest as his fingers withdrew from her body. He slid his hands to her bottom and lifted her off her feet, carrying her across the room, to where a floor-length mirror in a thick gilded frame stood propped against the wall. It must have been too heavy to move.

He spun her to face it, positioning himself behind her. Their gazes locked in the mirrored reflection. His eyes were dark, fierce, demanding.

“Show me.” He yanked her skirts to her waist—frock, petticoat, chemise, and all—exposing her completely. “Show me how you touched yourself.”

Penny’s heartbeat stalled. The gruff command both scandalized and excited her.

With a rough flex of his arms, he hauled her to him. His erection throbbed against the small of her back.

“Show me.”

Penny stared into the mirror. A bolder, naughtier version of herself gazed back. She placed a hand on her belly and eased it downward, until her fingertips disappeared into a thatch of amber curls. She hesitated, holding her breath.

“More,” he demanded. “I want to see you.”

His gruffness aroused her, but she wasn’t intimidated. With him, she knew she was safe.

She raised her free arm above her head, clasping his neck for balance and resting her head against his chest. He wrapped his arm about her torso, holding her tight and pinning her lifted skirts at the waist. Her joints softened, and her thighs fell slightly apart.

“That’s it. Spread yourself for me. Let me see.”

The woman in the mirror did as she was told, sending her fingers downward to part the pink, swollen folds of her sex. A single fingertip settled over the sensitive bud at the crest, circling gently.

His ragged breath warmed her ear. “God, you’re beautiful.”

She stared at the reflection, transfixed by the eroticism of the image within. She felt like a woman in a boudoir painting, flushed with desire and unashamed of her body’s curves and shadows. Aware of the power she held, even in her vulnerable, naked state.

As her excitement mounted, she strummed faster. She was panting, arching her back.

Suddenly, he worked his free hand between them, levering for space. His fingers made quick work of his buttons, and he pushed his trousers down over his hips. His freed erection pulsed between their bodies, so thick and hot and so very, very hard.

Yes. Take me.

He teased her instead, pushing against her cleft and gliding back and forth, spreading her slickness along his full length. Then he lifted and tilted her by the hips, thrusting inside. Deep, and then deeper, all the way to her core, giving her the fullness she craved.

He took her in long, steady strokes. His hardness was an anchor, balancing against the dizzying pleasure as she worked the hidden bud with her fingertips.

“Come.” His voice was strained, but he held himself to a slow, devastating rhythm. “I need to see you come.”

She held his gaze in the mirror for as long as she could, until the bliss overwhelmed her. She bit her lip, sealing in a cry as the climax broke. For a time, she was weightless in his arms, aware of nothing but the pleasure racking her body.

He ceased his thrusts as she quivered in the aftermath, supporting her boneless form. A courtesy on his part, surely. He was as hard as she’d ever felt him, and as her breathing slowed, the tension in his body increased.

She caught his gaze in the mirror and nodded.

Now.

“Lean over,” he growled. “Hands on the frame.”

The brusque command thrilled her. She did as he asked, bending forward at the waist and bracing her hands on either side of the mirror’s gilt frame.

He lifted her by the hips and pushed deep, claiming her in one powerful motion. As he took her in pounding thrusts, his flanks met her backside with sharp, rhythmic smacks. They echoed through the room, obscene and arousing. Soon these sounds were joined by low, primal grunts of satisfaction.

She watched him, captivated by the display of raw, unfettered male desire. Sweat broke out on his brow. His jaw clenched so tightly, the tendons on his neck went rigid. He stared at the mirror, watching her breasts jiggle and sway with each thrust.

With a muttered curse, he redoubled his pace. Her observations were halted. It was all she could do to brace herself against the force of his thrusts. She would have bruises tomorrow from his viselike grip.

She felt him swell even larger within her, and his rhythm faltered. With a tortured groan, he pulled free of her sex and pressed her legs together, thrusting between her thighs until his seed spilled over her skin—hot and crude.

She felt marked, claimed.

But also wild and free.

Several panting, sweaty, sticky moments later, they crumpled together to the floor, sitting with their backs against the wall. Penny rested her head on his chest. He was lovely to snuggle. There was simply so much of him. She could be satisfied with just one of his arms to clutch, or a single shoulder to rest her head upon.

But Penny wanted him all.

She couldn’t deny it any longer.

Closing her eyes, she pressed her ear to his pounding heartbeat. Like the rest of him, his heart was strong, defiant, loyal. Capable of lasting love. He might revel in denying it, but she knew the truth. If he ever permitted himself to love, he would love fiercely and without reserve. Only the most stubborn of women would be able to bear it.

And Penny loved nothing so much as a challenge.

Let me try, she silently willed. Let me try.

“So.” He sat up and stretched, dislodging her from her resting place. “You were asking about the ball.”

The ball.

She pulled herself from her musings. Yes, that was why she’d come over, wasn’t it?

“When did you decide to host a ball?”

He stood, hiking his trousers. “Somewhere between delivering you home from the hotel that night and exerting a bit of influence over the Irving family the following morning.”

Penny was agog. “You didn’t.”

“Would you rather those sisters spread vile gossip about you all over London?”

“I don’t want you ruining families on my account.”

“I didn’t ruin the Irvings. I merely made it known that I could ruin them, if I so chose.”

She moaned a little.

“Listen, it’s not my fault their father backed the wrong company in the fur trade.”

“The fur trade?” She accepted his hand, and he helped her to her feet. “Very well, I suppose I won’t complain. This time.”

So this was why she’d remained “unidentified woman” in the Prattler. She ought to have guessed.

She did her best to rearrange her attire. The seam under her arm had ripped. Yet one more frock for the mending heap. “This still doesn’t explain why you’re hosting a ball.”

“I would say something about two birds and one stone, but you’d complain about animal cruelty. Suffice it to say, by hiring an orchestra and inviting a crush of people to admire this place, we can solve both our problems in one evening. You can satisfy your aunt. I can sell the house.” He clapped his hands in cheery fashion. “All sorted.”

“How efficient.”

“While you’re here, you may as well give me your opinion on the wall coverings.” He gestured at the strips of silk damask on the wall. “Tell me your preference.”

“The blue.”

“They’re all blue. You’re not even looking.” He took her by the shoulders and swiveled her to face the samples. “Which is best for the lady of the house?”

“Why does it matter what I think?”

He tensed. “Why shouldn’t it matter?”

“Because I’m not the lady of the house.” She tried, and likely failed, to mask her discomposure. “It’s not my bedchamber. It never will be. So it doesn’t matter what I think, now does it?”

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Maybe not.”

Penny smoothed her skirts and drew a breath to calm her emotions. He didn’t deserve her frustration. Selling the house had always been his goal, and she was being churlish because she didn’t want to be reminded of it.

It wasn’t his fault that she was falling in love with him. For that, she had no one to blame but herself.

“Never mind me,” she said gamely. “I have no eye for fashion. And to be truthful, I don’t much like blue of any shade. That’s all.”

In a gesture she found irrationally dispiriting, he kissed her on the forehead. “Very well, then.”

Penny decided to change the subject—to kittens. Kittens were always a welcome change of subject.

“Here is some good news. The last litter of kittens is fully weaned. They’re ready for their new homes. We can take them tomorrow.”